Easily Disturbed

I just viewed The Dark Knight. I attempted to see it in theaters, in IMAX, actually, but the movie shut off about thirty minutes into it due to a power surge that shut down the projector. I know this isn't a popular response, but my experience of the film was dreadful. I thought the performances by Bale, Ledger, Oldman (did I ever tell you about the time Todd met Gary Oldman?), and Eckhart were really good, but I thought the movie was simply too hopeless. I thought it ended badly, and wondered if maybe they redid the ending so that we wouldn't have to see Ledger's character die.

There were some things that the movie got right, especially about the Joker. He was horrifying, yet all you wanted was for him to give up and be the sort of anti-hero that doesn't really like to cut people to death, so that he could be more entertaining and less frightening. Yet, for the entire film Batman is trying to give up being Batman. I think the film tried way to hard to push the whole there is no good without evil concept, constantly spelling it out for us instead of letting us see it for ourselves. I thought there were some beautiful scenes, like when Batman is riding the motorcycle and the cape is flowing behind him, or even when the Joker visits Dent in the hospital and is in the nurse uniform -- there is something really great about the color and the framing of those shots that made the movie very provocative. I thought the film was dreadful because I was filled with dread watching it. I am getting to be very sensitive to violence on screen, and there is just something about the city scenes in this film that felt way too close to home. I experience films, and some novels, very viscerally, and I may have to just quit seeing action-type films altogether.

From a slightly more critical perspective, I don't think this film should win Best Picture. I saw that Slumdog Millionaire won the Golden Globe for best picture, and I hope it does just as well with the Academy. I can't wait to see Revolutionary Road.